Calif woman gets 6 years for fatal texting crash

[steven johnson]

The driving-while-distracted stories are truely horrifying.

REDDING, Calif. – A woman who crashed into a line of stopped vehicles while text-messaging on her cell phone has been sentenced to six years in a California prison for killing a woman in one of the vehicles.

Deborah Matis-Engle was sentenced Friday by a judge in Redding, Calif.

Investigators said Deborah Matis-Engle was speeding and text messaging when she slammed into the vehicles stopped at a construction zone in August 2007.

Shasta County prosecutor Stephanie Bridgett said the 49-year-old woman had paid several bills by cell phone in the moments before the crash.

Calif woman gets 6 years for fatal texting crash

[Deja Q]

1. Crime doesn't pay.

[Xipe Totec]

2. She got off light n/t

[tularetom]

3. There is a god

although six years isn't enough for this kind of negligent act, it's more than I would ever expect a court to dole out.

Good for the judge.

[east texas lib]

4. She'll probably do a year or two max...

Maybe by then she can pull her head out of her ass. So tragic. So avoidable.

[Historic NY]

5. WTF is with people besides having ZERO common sense...

we had teens still texting 5 seconds before they impacted here killing 5 of them.

[kiva]

6. Good, hope she serves those 6 years. n/t

[emilyg]

7. Good - wish she'd gotten more.

[Jeep789]

8. I don't see the value of locking her up

It was an accident, stupid as it may be and she is not likely to repeat it. I think taking her license and cell phone for 5 year plus making her contribute monthly to the family she devastated would be a more appropriate sentence.

[cabluedem]

9. It was NOT an accident anymore then consuming alcohol and driving is an accident when you kill.....

..someone.

She willingly text messaged someone while driving, which is against the law in many states.

In or about 1997 or so near here, a young lady of 18 was reaching for a CD to put in the player of an SUV her parents owned. She promptly drifted over the bicycle lane and ran down and killed four cyclists who were riding legally in a single file lane, while doing so.

Should she have been put in prison? Hell,yes!

Was she? Hell, no.

She got 10 years probation, a lot of sheriff's public work time, a $10,000 dollar fine and a 5 year drivers' license revocation. No prison time at all. No jail sentence, just time served.

You call that justice?

If she had been a 30 year old man with a couple of drinks under his belt, you can bet it would have been a whole different affair entirely, but both would have been *CHOSEN* actions by the driver's.

[Name removed]

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